The branding for the product "All About Flux" was carefully designed to be coherent. Effort was made to create an overall well-branded package, not just individual high quality elements. The branding incorporates a consistent house style with primary colors of red, black, white and brown to connote a vintage feel relating to the circus theme. Fonts, lighting, props, costumes and visual themes were all selected to reinforce this vintage circus theme and make the artists appear appealing and marketable to the target audience. Audience feedback was gathered to help refine the design elements and ensure the branding successfully represented the desired themes and messaging.
2. In what ways is the branding coherent?
Effort was made to make sure that I did not just produce a good quality digipak and video but an
overall well branded product. I have included a number of features that make up a marketable
brand for our group ‘All About Flux’.
1. House Style/Theme
The colours chosen for this project were primarily red, black, white
And brown. We chose these colours as they connote a vintage feel,
Relating directly to the circus and the old fashioned theatre that we
Filmed in. The choice of simple colours (black & white) was also
Deliberate in the digipak and poster task, as these colours showed up
Best on the bright background, it also meant that the colour palette
Did not have to be changed so I could keep red as the dominant
Colour.
3. 2. Font
There were two main fonts used in the production of the digipak, these were:
The use of two fonts meant that I was able to keep the digipak simple
and not overcomplicated. The fonts were chosen after audience feedback
of a list of typefaces. The results of this audience feedback were put into a graph using the
software Excel. I did this so that the results were easy to understand and it was quicker for
me to decide what font was the most popular. The graph of audience feedback is shown
below:
LeviBrush and PoplarStd were the most popular two so I decided to run with them. I
wanted a typeface for the title ‘Just Don’t Care’ that looked scribbled as if someone really
didn’t care, this is why I chose to use a font that was messy yet still readable. I used
Poplar Std as it was a good all round font that was bold, Clear and good for the band name
as it made it stand out.
4. 3. Lighting
The lighting throughout our music video switches from an old fashioned dark theatre
(suggesting the past) to natural daylight (suggesting the present). This switch of two tenses and
locations was mirrored in the production of the digipak and poster. In the digipak the sepia
tone is used on the slip page where we see photographs of the cast in different poses, however
the other parts of the digipak are in full colour, continuing the house style and colour
combinations. When filming the performance elements of our video we decided to use bright
light to give the performers a star appearance. Making the artists marketable is important when
deciding to produce a music video and the correct use of lighting is key to making them look
like stars and appeal to our target audience. When taking the photographs to use in the print
task I also considered how the performers would be best presented. I decided to photograph the
artists in a similair position to the stop motion section of our video (where Jack & Emma
moved from seat to seat around the cinema) because I thought this was an original idea and
would really appeal to our target audience of individualists and hedonists. Below are some
examples of the different lighting used throughout the print work and filming:
5. 4. Props and costumes
When brainstorming ideas for our music video we decided that we wanted to create an
Entropic circus theme. We collected props and costumes that would suit a clown character (bowler
hat, ripped jacket, diablo, spinning plates, bunting etc..) and after deciding on the plot collected a
costume for the girlfriend and other man (smart clothing, suit, mac jacket, pearls).
We also collected costumes for the performance elements of the video. Yet again we wanted these
to fit in with the circus theme and house style so we included braces, bowler hats and striped
clothing all in black, white and red. We also kept in mind what would appeal to our target
audience so as well as the props we decided that the performers would wear clothing that maybe
our target audience would wear (e.g. converse).
The props used for the characters suggest to our audience what type of person they are. The clown
wore ripped clothes to suggest that he was poor and his girlfriend wore pearls and smart clothing
suggesting that she wished for more money. The scene where the girlfriend and the rich man were
drinking wine suggested to our audience the real reason that she had left in the first place. The
wine and the necklace was used as a connotation of wealthiness and these scenes interspliced with
the clown scenes showed the two main binary oppositions in our video Rich & Poor/ Love & Loss.
6. 5. Visual Themes
A number of different visual themes were used throughout this project. When it came to designing
the digipak these themes had to be condensed down into a simple but effective package. The main
theme that I wanted to convey through m designs was the idea of the vintage theatre. To convey this I
applied a grain effect on the front and back cover of the digipak, I also used this filter to make a
velvet effect for the cd. Although I really liked what I had done I wanted to check with my target
audience that there was nothing that I had missed or could improve on. To do this I created a number
of different questions relating to my digipak and asked them to respond using sticky notes. These are
two of the most relevant questions relating to visual themes:
I received valuable feedback from my target audience
Suggesting that the filter should be toned down for
The front cover as it looks a bit overbearing on the
Artists faces. This is something I changed in the
Drafting process. I also received positive feedback
About the colour scheme so this is something I kept.